Last month citizens in Adams Township took their concerns about the nation’s drug epidemic public, and asked supervisors and municipal police to support the formation of a neighborhood watch program.

The township did just that, and it seems that Butler County is watching the formation of its newest community program. That’s a good thing, and a mission we wish more neighborhoods would embark upon.

While it’s true that research on the effectiveness of neighborhood watch programs is varied and largely inconclusive, it’s also true that the groups can help neighbors get to know each other, and help entire communities better know and understand the emergency services organizations that serve and protect them every day.

By the year 2000 nearly 40 percent of the residential population nationwide was covered by a citizen crime watch program in some form, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2008 the department reviewed 17 years of data — 1977 to 1994 — on how the groups affect crime rates, and determined that the programs were associated with a “significant reduction in crime.”

On average, according to the department’s analysis, communities with a neighborhood watch program saw a 16 percent decrease in crime versus areas that had no program. The National Neighborhood Watch Program credits a more than 30 percent drop in burglaries throughout the 1990s to communities forming the groups.

More recent research on the groups has been less positive. A 2002 study for Congress by the National Institute of Justice and the University of Maryland concluded that the groups were “ineffective” in preventing crime. And a 2008 analysis by researchers at the University of Glamorgan found that most research into the programs’ effectiveness is anecdotal and poorly-designed.

Despite those points, we believe the programs would be a positive addition to any community in Butler County.

Even if the by-the-numbers success of neighborhood watch programs nationwide has been uneven and difficult to track, all that matters to us is their effectiveness here and now. And that effectiveness can’t be tracked with just crime rates and five-year trends.

Do the programs promote community engagement and getting to know your neighbors? Do they advocate residents using safe, common sense strategies to improve safety in their community and help police departments do their jobs? Do they promote positive interactions between residents and members of the emergency services organizations serving their community?

If the answer to those questions is yes, there’s simply no reason a community shouldn’t start a neighborhood watch program — or residents shouldn’t get involved in a program that already exists.

There doesn’t need to be a problem with crime or with drugs for a community to come together and commit to helping each other. And people don’t have to commit to patrolling the streets to create an effective watch program.

They simply have to change the way they think about interacting with their neighbors and other members of their community, and then take action to become a better neighbor.